Part 4, Chapter 32
Chapter 32
“Well, the original McAllister Trust was created by Catherine Tremblay, my great-great-grandmother. Until Genevieve showed up I never really understood why…”
Joshua Carstairs frowned and hesitated. We were supposed to be talking about the Trust and the history of the family, but I could see he wanted to change the subject. His jaw moved sideways and the left side of his lip pursed out a bit, sticking his distinguished, bristled silver mustache out a bit as he regarded me.
“Son, how long have you known this woman?” he asked abruptly.
“A few months I guess. Since Thanksgiving.”
“How convinced are you by her story?” he asked, his cool blue eyes suddenly piercing.
I grunted a short laugh. “When I met her she had no left leg and only half her arm. I watched ‘em grow back.”
He stared at me levelly, his eyes narrowing. “What if I said I don’t believe you? What’s your angle anyway?”
I suddenly felt defensive. “Well you can…” I started, a little hotly. Then I stopped and shut my mouth. I took a deep breath and smiled at myself. When we’d first met I’d gotten the impression that he thought I might be the motivator behind all of this and I’d let that get to me. But I could see where he was coming from and fighting him wasn’t going to do any good.
“Hell, I wouldn’t believe me either.” I laughed. “Does it matter? I’m just here to do what she hired me to do. I got no horse in this race otherwise. Wanna see my driver’s license? Run a background check or something? I’m no one, man, just a writer.”
He kept staring at me, trying to take my measure, then relented. “I’d like to believe this, especially because mother believes it and it means so much to her. But whenever I try to, my mind stops me. Could she be two people? Twins maybe?”
“She said you did DNA tests, but I guess that may be some way possible… well except for what I’ve seen, which isn’t. Anyway I’ve thought pretty hard about it myself, and if this were a hoax somebody spent an awful lot of time and money setting it up. And for what? Is your family that rich? Mine sure as hell isn’t.”
“No, that’s what keeps me from putting my foot down with mother. There’s just no motive I can find. If somebody wanted the land all they’d have to do is wait for the foreclosure. Instead she’s refurbished the house, rebuilt the stables…”
“I find her a pretty hard to figure myself,” I said, “but you know, she does what she does, whatever her reasons.” I paused, leaning forward a bit before continuing, “And to tell you the truth, I still wonder, even with everything I’ve seen… sometimes it just turns so bizarre… but I always come back to the same idea. If she’s not what she says she is, then what the hell is she? Seems like it’s close enough either way that it doesn’t really matter.” I stopped and laughed again. “Dude, she grew her freaking leg back.”
His thick silver lashes furrowed. “Dude?” he said, his voice gently mocking. “Am I a dude?” He shook his head and we both laughed at my 1980s slang. I just waited while he sat at his desk drumming his fingers with a half-frown, half-grin on his face. After a minute or two he relaxed, sagging back into his chair. I spoke again before he could.
“Okay, look, I’m not here to be her advocate or whatever. I mean I like her, hard as she makes that sometimes. But you know I’m here to ask you questions, not the other way around. What you think is up to you, sir. So why don’t you tell me what you think?”
“I?” he asked. “What do I think?” he stopped. “What do I think?” he asked again, emphasizing the second word. “What I think is that… well it seems as if she’s been good for this town, and I haven’t seen mother this lit up and happy since… since Dad died. Mind you, everybody was up in arms when she first showed up. People tried to deny permits for the house renovations, forbade work on the right-of-way, things like that. I was expecting all sorts of court fights and wasn’t sure where we’d come out on those, but then she went on a charm offensive. She won a lot of people over that way, one person at a time. It was something to see.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Let me tell you, she had people who hated my guts for holding out on the development plans, eating out of her hand in just days. Some of it was straight-forward bribery, but most of it… how she did it is a mystery to me.”
“Bribery?”
“Well, not in the legal sense, no, but…. The town’s getting a brand new high school. We’ve been debating about it for five years, mostly how do we pay for it and what do we build. She plunked down a few million dollars and told them to build whatever they wanted so long as they named it
“Jesus, I knew she had resources, but that’s…”
“Impressive?” he said, chuckling a bit.
“Excessive.
“Oh, yeah. Had a flurry of folks down at the Historical Society looking him up. And the portrait of Elaine McAllister drew lots of attention as well. Jeremiah and Elaine…” He stumbled for a minute and then forged ahead. “They weren’t all that well-known, really. In their time they were considered a somewhat risqué couple, almost disreputable but for his father’s solid reputation. Old Samuel McAllister used to be a big shot in this town back about 200 years ago and had some good contacts in
“Ah, yeah, that brings up something I wanted to ask. I don’t see any McAllister’s in town. Is the family name dead?”
“No, but that part of the family spread out across the country. The Trust is named the McAllister Trust after Jeremiah, but the beneficiaries are all descendants of Catherine Tremblay. The last McAllister in this area was buried about thirty years ago. Nobody really paid much attention because there wasn’t a lot of money tied up in it, just the old house and about fifty acres of land. Things got sticky when the developers started trying to force us to sell. Folks came out of the woodwork to remind us they wanted their share.”
He looked angry when he said that last, but then shrugged, “It doesn’t matter now,” he finished.
“One thing I don’t understand, about the house I mean. Why didn’t the town take it by eminent domain?”
He grinned at me. “They made noises about it, but they know I can devote as much time as I please to fighting them in court. Also, there are people in this town, hell, in this state, who owe me favors, and I know where some bodies are buried. Add it all up and nobody was ready to play hardball. If it hadn’t been for some bad turns in the Trust’s investments there never would have been the tax problems and it all would have been moot.”
We went over some other things, minor details about the family history in the 19th century and the history of the house and property up until the present, which was really all I had come to get, and once we were done I packed up my notes and prepared to leave. As he walked me out he paused at his office door, his hand on the doorknob.
“I need to ask you something,” he said. “I wasn’t going to because it feels like I’m being… ungracious, maybe? But I think it needs to be done.”
“Ask away.”
“Do you trust her?”
His face was very serious, so much so that I had to stop and think about my answer.
“I believe her,” I finally replied, “Everything she says has the ring of someone telling the truth, and everything I’ve been able to verify matches up.” I stopped and thought again. “The more I get to know her, the more I just do believe her.”
He shook his head. “That isn’t what I meant. Let’s assume she is what she says she is. She’s immortal. She’s thousands of years old and nothing can hurt her for very long. Let’s say that’s true. But is she telling you the truth, the whole truth, about herself? Is she telling us the whole truth?”
I stared at him, frowning. I wasn’t sure how to answer him. He saw that and he looked down a little.
“Have you ever even considered the possibility she’s something… sinister?”
“Mr. Carstairs…”
“Please, Joshua. We’re both in this deep enough, don’t you think?”
“Joshua,” I nodded at him, “I don’t know what she is. I’ve never seen her suck blood or anything like that. All I know is, everything I’ve been able to check pans out. Also, she made me a promise that… well it seems very important to her. She’s repeated it a few times, almost like a ritual, especially when she seems upset.” Joshua’s eyebrows went up and he peered at me quizzically. “She’s said she’ll never lie to me.” His looked turned skeptical, but I just shrugged. “Well that seems very important to her. But she also tells me she’s been a liar her whole life. So…?” I shrugged again. “Those things I can verify all check out. I’ve met Dennis Novak—he’s known her since the Fifties, and they both showed me some proof.”
“Yes but proof of what? Just that she existed?”
“Well, yeah. She said you dug into her past. Did you find something important?”
“Perhaps.” He gestured back to his desk and we sat again.
“Assuming she’s Elaine McAllister, I can trace her with a fair amount of certainty starting from the 1830s or so,” Joshua told me. “Crazy as it sounds, it looks like she…” his eyes stopped and looked at me, “it looks like after Jeremiah McAllister died, she wandered off down south, keeping occasional correspondence with the rest of the family. Then…” he stopped. “Well, it looks like she was hanged for murder in
“Hanged for murder…?” I asked, feeling a little uneasy.
“You don’t seem surprised.” His eyebrows shot up.
“Well… she’s told me that she was once pretty insane and that she’s killed people. ‘I have been a murderer’ were her exact words I think.”
His jaw dropped and he blinked. “So you’re still willing to work with her?”
I stopped and thought about it. “Well I’ve known some reformed criminals and…” my voice trailed off. “Look, she confessed to losing her temper and murdering a woman about 3,000 years ago in
Joshua just looked at me. “Tortured.” He said it without much emphasis, with just a tiny hint of skepticism.
“Well, the way she’s explained it, she’s been completely alone, without any guidance… no parents, no family or friends, without anybody at all, her whole life except for brief periods here and there. She’s got to be the loneliest person I’ve ever met.” I was surprised at the emotions this seemed to be bringing up in me. “She seems to have gone through a lot. I don’t know, I can’t judge it. A few times she’s scared me to be honest with you but….” I stopped. “I don’t think she likes herself much and I know she’s not proud of things she’s done. I’m also pretty sure she doesn’t want to hurt anybody now.” I paused, surprising myself with my own certainty. “I think it would tear her up if she hurt anybody today.”
“You think those people in
“Well, I don’t know. I can ask her. In fact I will ask her. Do you think she’s wanted in
He laughed. “I’ve asked myself that. Honestly, I can’t see a Georgia District Attorney trying to have her extradited. I’m not even sure what the law at the time would have said about someone who was hanged and pronounced dead, then turned out not to be.”
“They really hanged her? Wow!”
“We’re almost certain it was her. Afterwards, some old drunks told a detective they saw her claw her way out of her grave.”
“Yikes! And he believed them?”
“He was a private dick my great-great-Grandmother hired. I don’t think the law got involved after the hanging. He was pretty sure she was just lucky. Anyway supposedly she changed identities, then supposedly drowned in a river a few years later, again according to eyewitnesses who never recovered the body. Catherine never believed she was dead and kept writing to her. She kept sending letters to her last attorney of record until she died.”
“So basically we’re pretty certain she’s telling the truth about her past, yes?”
“A lawyer would say the evidence available seems to be in agreement with the facts as presented. What we could also say is that she’s been truthful about things we’d be able to check. Conversely, she may simply have been very careful about researching her lies before she told them.” He sat back and let out a long breath. “I’m not trying to prove she’s lying about anything. I’m just wondering…. What do we know about her motives, what she’s really trying to accomplish?”
“She seems to be doing exactly what she says she’s doing. She’s letting more and more people into her inner circle. Can’t we choose to judge her by her actions? Don’t they seem to follow her words?”
“So far as we can tell, yes. But if we accept that she’s this ancient thing…. I can’t escape the notion that a creature with that much experience would have no trouble getting people to believe anything she wanted. And she’s a killer, apparently, or has been. So, what is she really and what is she up to?”
I wasn’t sure what he was getting at. “I’m not going to try to defend her. I can only say so far it looks like she’s never lied to me, and in my gut I don’t think she’s a killer now. She’s scared me a few times with her temper but… well hell I don’t know what she is, but I think…” I stopped, surprising myself again. “I don’t think she’s evil now. I think she obviously has been though.”
“An evil supernatural creature that’s no longer evil.” He said it flatly. It wasn’t even a question exactly. “You believe that.”
“Joshua, I honestly don’t know what choice I have. If she’s such a master at manipulation and she’s working towards some goal we have no way of understanding, why are you involved?”
“Partly it’s my disbelief. I still think this must be a scam somehow. Also mother loves her. Also… well there’s the money.” I looked surprised and he gave me a grim smirk. “You think I’m immune to money? She pays well, and so far absolutely nothing she’s asked me to do has been in any way shady. In fact if anything it’s the opposite. She’s in the habit of paying for things she doesn’t need to pay for, or overpaying for them. Yet, according to what you’ve said, she’s a confessed killer. Yet still, she’s so kind and gentle to my family, and me, I allow her to live in the old family homestead without objection. I even let my mother, my mother, consort with her at will. Now I’m up to my eyeballs in financial ties with her via the trust. When I sit back and look at that, it scares the hell out of me because I don’t know how I let it happen. It all seemed so damned reasonable at the time. And if I believe any of this, I have to believe she’s supernatural.” He paused. “I’m not a superstitious man,” he said, sounding fairly firm.
“Me neither,” I said, grinning a little. “Yet just to keep doing this job I have to believe there’s at least something to it. Mostly I just try to accept what she says at face value. Maybe that makes me crazy.” I chuckled. “Maybe she’s crazy and I’m crazy and you’re crazy, too, and we’re all in a madhouse without knowing it.”
He didn’t look amused. Instead his eyes narrowed, then he slumped forward, his forehead resting in his hands. He looked exhausted and a little embarrassed. “So what do you believe she is?” he asked, not looking up.
I didn’t say anything because I didn’t know. Instead I thought about it. How did I get involved in this, anyhow? She’d played to my ego and to my needs—my family had been fighting the financial beast for years with no end in sight until she showed up and dropped a year’s salary in my lap. I was still wrestling with that when Joshua spoke again. This time his voice was darker and he still wasn’t looking up.
“My mother is a Presbyterian, but my father, he was a Baptist through and through. Any time mother would let him he’d haul us off to his church to listen to old Pastor Fisher preach the gospel. One thing he taught always stuck with me: The war between good and evil is purely spiritual and it’s fought on the battlefield of the soul. Evil doesn’t show up on your doorstep and make you rob banks or kill people. No, it invites you out for a soda pop, or an ice cream. It offers you help by showing you easy solutions to difficult problems. It helps you to take the things you did and find ways to justify them. ‘Evil,’ he’d say, ‘leads us to Hell in baby steps’. I look at the way she has worked her way into our lives. I see the way everything we do, and everything we care about, is slowly but surely being twisted into tools that serve her purposes.”
He stopped, then went on. “I step back and I see how she’s bound my family and this town to her, emotionally, financially… and I see how I helped her do it… and all I can hear is that old preacher.”
He finally looked up and fixed his steely gaze on me, waiting. Finally I found my voice. “Okay, but what’s she asked you to do that’s bad or wrong? So far you haven’t said anything… and she’s never, not even once, asked me to do anything bad or….”
He shook his head. “So far, nothing even remotely sinister. Yet she’s obviously got these plans she isn’t always clear about, and sometimes she has a way of changing the subject… and if she is this ancient thing, and she’s lying to us about her desires, about her purposes, then…” He paused, taking in a deep breath and then slowly letting it out. “If she’s lying we are all of us well and truly damned.”
“Come on, man, you think she’s like a demon or something?”
He snorted at me, a bit angrily. “You mock the idea?”
“I don’t really believe in demons and devils,” I said, my voice trailing off. I suddenly felt uncertain. I knew his next question before he asked it
“Yet you believe in three thousand year old women.”
I realized I couldn’t answer that and didn’t try. So he just went on.
“I think it was C.S. Lewis who said the devil’s greatest trick was making us think he didn’t exist.”
I just looked at him. Slowly I nodded. “I guess that’s something we’ll both have to think about” I said, feeling a little knot in my stomach. “Hard to know what to be skeptical of once you’ve already believed six impossible things before breakfast,” I muttered.
“Fair enough.” He then peered at me again through squinted eyes. “Well let me ask you this, son. What do you want to believe about her?”
I thought about it. An alien from another planet? A vampire? A fallen angel…? I couldn’t say for sure, but I doubted all of it.
“I want to believe there is a natural explanation for her existence. That’s why I was so pumped by this research effort you proposed…” I stopped when I saw him frown again.
“I proposed that as a trap, you know. Ah, you didn’t see that, did you?”
“No. I thought it was brilliant, actually. You weren’t serious?”
“Oh, I’m serious about it. It’s a win-win proposal. If she was a fraud, she’d never agree to be examined like that, and I’ll tell you—when she hesitated about it I was convinced I had her number. But if she was not a fraud and was the benign immortal creature she claimed to be, well, it would work just the way I suggested. Learn the secrets, offer the knowledge, and leverage the influence of that in order to protect her. But now… these other thoughts have me wondering if we’re just playing into some sort of infernal trap.”
“I’m not sure I follow you.”
“Assume we learn the secret to her ‘immortality’ and that it’s something that could be shared. Can you imagine what the reaction could be?”
“Actually, yeah. She and I argued pretty hotly about this when you proposed it. When I said it was a good idea she nearly fired me and pulled the plug on everything. She’s afraid of what might happen to the human race if practical immortality is dropped in our laps. She doesn’t want to be responsible if it turns out bad.”
“You think that concern is… overblown?”
I nodded.
He looked a little surprised “Well I certainly don’t! There are a lot more religious people in this country than most Americans realize, all perfectly normal, rational people whose faith is not worn on their sleeves. For some of those people the idea of embracing an immortal life in the mortal world is going to look an awful lot like a Faustian bargain and a rejection of God’s will: The Devil dangling immortality as the prize for abandoning God’s Kingdom. I can see televangelists screaming about it already.”
“I guess,” I said, not sure I really agreed. “But I could see it going the other way too. I look at the possibility of healing people, curing horrible diseases… and I’m basically pro-choice. I think most people are adults who can make their own decisions. I also think people have been saying things about medical technology thwarting God’s will for as long as I can remember and the country didn’t fall apart. I don’t see this as much different.”
He shook his head. “This seems more extreme.”
“Well, does it help to know she shares your fears? Because she does.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I honestly don’t know.”
We sat there for a while, quietly. “Well, we’ll just have to see won’t we?” I said.
I thought about asking him to dinner but then I decided I’d rather be alone to think. The meat loaf at the diner wasn’t bad and a couple of beers helped relax me. Before I left the diner I broke out my laptop and made some notes. The town was still old-fashioned enough that they looked at me like I was kind of exotic to be using a computer like that in public, so after a while I just got back in the car and made my way back down the country roads outside of town to her house. I got lost once, but the map she’d given me was excellent and it didn’t take me too long to find my way to her place again.
George met me at the door and told me Zsallia was out for the night, asked if I wanted him to make me a snack or anything. He showed me to my guest room, again, made sure I knew where to find the bathroom and kitchen, and told me to make myself at home. Then he retired to his own quarters downstairs and told me to call him if I needed anything.
The old house seemed spooky and empty, so I just went to my room, shut the door and called my wife. I went to bed, listening to the creaks and groans of the old, empty house. I had a hard time falling asleep, feeling like there were ghosts all around me, thinking of Joshua’s more disturbing words. But finally I dozed off.
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